Devil on the Cross Essay Questions

Discuss the nature of good and evil in Devil on the Cross. How does this understanding of good and evil implicate the religious in everyday life?

Far from being the remote concerns of clerics and philosophers, Devil on the Cross situates good and evil at the forefront of everyday people's lives. This comes most clearly into focus on the matatũ journey to Ilmorog, when Mwaũra and Mũturi have a conversation about whether or not the Devil and God are both incarnate and thus "real" or "existent." While Mwaũra, whose heart is captivated only by greed and wealth, argues that the heart is neither good nor evil, but subject to the whims and control of either master, Mũturi argues that, while the heart is neutral, one's actions on earth shape whether or not their heart is good or evil. Mũturi tells us that the heart is the engine which drives people to make good things in the world and that, in a positive feedback loop, these good things built by people for their fellow man in turn sustain us to do even more good. Where evil comes in, then, is in parasitically enjoying the benefits of these creations while detracting from them or destroying the public and common good. In this way, Mwaũra and Mũturi's debate on good and evil accomplishes two things: first, it lays out an analytic definition of good and evil based on the actions of an otherwise neutral, impressionable heart; second, it specifies the necessity of the Devil and God being incarnate, since the agents of good and evil on earth are real people. Were we to deny the reality of God and the Devil as incarnate beings, we would be less able to recognize good and evil among ourselves on Earth.

Why is the Devil's visit to Warĩĩnga on the golf course so significant in understanding the central message of Devil on the Cross?

When Warĩĩnga is visited by the Devil on the Ilmorog golf course, he tells her at length about the schemes of Kĩmeendeeri wa Kanyuanjii, which are simultaneously being relayed to the witnesses of the Devil's Feast by Kĩmeendeeri himself. In doing so, however, the Devil is not just laying out a schematic representation of an ambitious plan for theft an exploitation (involving the farming of peasant's blood, sweat, and brains, as well as an elaborate system of rituals designed to keep this farming project in place), but he is also allegorically describing the systems of late-stage capitalism that produce nearly identical exploitation and pain in the status quo. For example, when the Devil mentions the extraction of peasant labor and life to feed the "developed" world, he is really talking about the fact that, both domestically and abroad, people in "developing" countries are exploited and kept in line through a series of complex distractions created by and imported from the "developed" world. These include religion, which distracts people from the material plights of this life, cultural and media propaganda that glorify the other nations of the world as well as the capitalist system, and systems of education that present capitalism as the only or dominant economic system. The Devil's visit to Warĩĩnga is not just important because it allows Ngũgĩ to posit his philosophies on capitalism, however; it is also significant because even the Devil himself acknowledges that such a system could be overturned if people were aware that revolution is an option. This hits home to Ngũgĩ's revolutionary Marxist ideals and reminds us of the urgency of the text's message.

Discuss Ngũgĩ's exploration of gender in Devil on the Cross. Why is it important that our hero is a woman?

Regarding gender in the text, there are two primary points that one ought to acknowledge. First, one must acknowledge the redemption arc of Warĩĩnga's story, where she goes from a victim of capitalist sugar relationships at the beginning of the novel to a revolutionary and self-sufficient ideologue at its end. Related to this point is the fact that, in the novel, seemingly every character looks down on women as mere sex objects, consistently objectifying them and thinking little of how much their lives matter. In Ngũgĩ's eyes, for this reason, there is no more oppressed figure in postcolonial Kenya than the Black woman, and this is why he chooses her for the redemption arc. Even a peasant woman, whose plight is so consistent and so pervasive throughout the country, can be awakened into a self-saving redemption and revolutionary consciousness, if shown the right path. No obstacle is too great to be overcome by the revolutionary collective.

Second, and just as important, one must also acknowledge the fact that Warĩĩnga's story is told to us by a man. We are not meant to trust the Gĩcaandĩ Player's narration entirely, and the gender gap between he and his subject makes it entirely possible that he is reporting certain information in a less-than-reliable way. Even so, this comes from a traditional folk artist, the type of person that Ngũgĩ's Marxism would venerate. In sum, then, Ngũgĩ's hero is a woman because, through the lens of womanhood, he is able to show us that neither the local past nor the globalized present offers respite for certain people; rather, revolution is the only way forward to a more free and fulfilling future.

Discuss Ngũgĩ's use of binaries or dualities in the text. What is the effect of pairing things with their opposites, parallels, or mirror images so often?

One of Ngũgĩ's most distinct narrative techniques in Devil on the Cross is showing the way that things often take form as or break up into two separate, often opposing, components. To name just a few examples, consider the aforementioned distinction Mũturi make between the two hearts, the two journeys undertaken by Warĩĩnga in the text, the splintering of the robbers into two clans at the Devil's Feast, and so on. These are just examples on a larger scale: on a sentence level, too, Ngũgĩ deploys binaries and dualities to enliven sentences and provide them with a unique sense of rhythm. To return to the macro-level, however, by using this narrative technique, Ngũgĩ is able to advance his text through a kind of Marxist dialectic, where ideas are made to collide with their opposites before a kind of synthetic resolution of the two together. Additionally, by showing the two sides of an issue, Ngũgĩ draws out our appreciation for the distinct qualities of each individual side by showing its alongside its opposite. Finally, there is potential in this narrative device to highlight the absurdity of reality, since it can often be said to represent the reconciliation or synthesis of two absurd and extreme opposites.

How does Devil on the Cross frame a larger understanding of the political and personal importance of language?

Ngũgĩ most succinctly summarizes this point on page 58, where he writes that "[...] Gatuĩria was [...] aware that the slavery of language is the slavery of the mind and nothing to be proud of." In other words, though Gatuĩria is unable to fully express himself in his native language, he knows that it is important to maintain a connection to this language because it has a larger relationship to the way one sees the world and their self (i.e., the "mind"). Thus, in Ngũgĩ's mind, language is duly important because it not only is a means for people to relate to and connect with each other (itself an admirable end in Ngũgĩ's Marxist ideology), but it is also the tool which allows us to shape and then view the world around us. When a language is erased, it takes entire worldviews and value systems away with it. Thus, against the grain of importing foreign language and culture, Ngũgĩ recommends preserving local customs, languages, and ways of life, since each of these is an important act of personal and political resistance against the exploitative economic systems imported from other countries.